Prognostic role of expression of N-cadherin in patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma: a multi-institutional study

Purpose To assess the role of N-cadherin as prognostic biomarker in patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) in a large multi-institutional cohort of patients. Patients and methods Immunohistochemistry was used to evaluate the status of N-cadherin expression in 678 patients with unilateral sporadic UTUC treated with radical nephroureterectomy. N-cadherin was considered positive if any immunoreactivity with membranous staining was detected. The Kaplan–Meier method was used to estimate recurrence-free survival, overall survival and cancer-specific survival. Disease recurrence, overall mortality and cancer-specific mortality probabilities were tested in Cox regression models. Results Expression of N-cadherin was observed in 292 (43.1%) of patients, and it was associated with advanced tumour stage (p